Author: Paul Zinn
Pitcher Joel Pineiro has made a habit of tormenting the Mets, and it continued last night at Citi Field, with a 3-0 victory by the hurler and the Cardinals over the depleted Metropolitans.
Pineiro improved to 6-8 by tossing a complete-game shutout, in which he yielded just two hits. The St. Louis' pitcher needed just 100 pitches, and while he only struck out one and walked one, Pineiro induced an amazing 22 ground ball outs.
Frankly, there isn't much to say about this one. The Mets were able to do nothing offensively.
Livan Hernandez (5-2) certainly didn't pitch a bad game. He allowed three runs (two earned) on eight hits in seven innings.
Pineiro even managed to register two hits, the first of which did the Mets in. His leadoff double in the third put runnres on first and second with no one out. Still, New York had an opportunity to get out of the inning unscathed when Skip Schumaker hit a hard grounder to Daniel Murphy at first base. Murphy's poor throw allowed Pineiro to score an unearned run that made it 1-0. When it could have been a double play, the Mets didn't record an out.
St. Louis tacked on two more in the seventh on an Albert Pujols single to leftfield.
The Mets will continue trying to survive a tough stretch of the schedule with a depleted lineup tonight when they face the Cardinals in the third of four. Fernando Nieve (2-0) will match up with Brad Thompson (2-2) at 7:10 p.m.
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